TWO

TWO
Wherein I tell the Sisters of Perpetual Disappointment good-bye...

Now, I always DID question the RC dogma.

In my mind, to myself, without ever letting on. God or mom or SOMEBODY would SURELY have struck me down dead if they knew, but my problem with the dogma started REALLY REALLY EARLY!

When Sister Mary Sincere explained to us about heaven, hell and purgatory, I started to wonder.

By the way, the other name for purgatory being ‘limbo’ was QUITE amusing to me. How low can you go?

Apparently limbo was the place that ALL the GOOD people who were NOT RC were going to go when they died.

OK, at first I was really excited to find out that I had the keys to the pearly gates as long as I was good because I was one of the true believers... that sounded pretty cool.

BUT...
my favourite grandma was NOT RC.
She was sweet and kind and generous and had a fabulous sense of humour.
I adored her.
(And I suspect I have to thank HER for ANY good genetic materials respecting temperament and such...)

BUT...she could NOT GO TO HEAVEN.... only the eternal nothingness...
WAIT ONE MINUTE~!

(I’m just THINKING THIS, folks... hadn’t grown the tongue in my head as of yet)

How could THAT BE???!!!???!!

My other grandma, who I swear was the bride of the devil, spent every Sunday fluffing the altarcloths at her RC church, sprinkled her bed with holy water every night before she got into it, had the priest over for dinner, and was the cruelest, most negative thing I ever met (even more so than her daughter-in-law, aka mommy dearest)

How the HELL could grandma Nasty get there and grandma Nice NOT???!!!
That one really blew my little mind... made me ANGRY...
made me WONDER...
made me decide early early in the RC game that they could NOT be as completely right and infallible as I had believed.

(then again, I could have put my head in a bucket for 40 years, pulled it out and read the news and found THAT out!)

But, once your religious faith gets a good knock, well, you start to look at things in an entirely different way.

Like for example, all the good little girls whose mommies belonged to the Women’s league... they were little bitches, every last one of them.
But, there they were every Sunday, all dolled up and looking pious and holy and proper in their little lacy gloves and head scarves.
Hmmmmm.
They are BAD. They are MEAN to ME, and anyone else that doesn’t wear the nicest clothes, etc. etc.
Hmmmmm.
THEY get to go to heaven but not my Grandma Nice???
And I get to move on from grade school to high school and spend ANOTHER 5 YEARS with them?
Pushing me into the walls of the stairwells.
Mocking me.
Tripping me.
Making fun of my clothes, my hair, my skin, my lack of boobs.
Framing me for art supply thefts.
The best one was the chick that zipped up my new coat all the way to the end of the zipper, catching my neck in the metal teeth. That was HILARIOUS, wasn’t it girls???
Nope.
No more of THAT crap for ME!
I made up my mind. I registered for the PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL.

OH MY GAWD.

Every week for the last two months of school I was in the principal’s office at least once.
The threats were veiled in dogma at first.

Sister Presbyopia could SEE that I was condemning myself to at best purgatory.
I listened to these speeches without responding for ages. It was when I was summoned to the office and saw my MOTHER waiting there, "kill-you" in her eyes, that I began to worry about my mortal soul.

But when Sister Presbyopia finally told my mother WHY she had been summoned, that it was to "save my soul" by keeping me (and mom’s tax dollars) safely in the clutches, I mean EMBRACE, of the holy RC church...my mother shocked the crap out of me.
SHE TOOK MY SIDE.
Mom said that I was a smart girl and that if I wanted to go to the public school that would be OK with her.
OH MY GOD.
We went home and had our Friday no-meat-day tuna sandwiches, and I was frankly QUITE puzzled.
But mom explained her theory about nuns being shrivelled up dried up old... Geez, even I can’t WRITE what she said about the nuns...

Bottom line.. Mom had been an unwilling convert, just for the sake of marriage and church laws and honestly DIDN’T care what high school I went to... in fact, the public high school was CLOSER and I could keep on coming home for lunch, which was fine with her...

(YIKES! I hadn’t considered THAT, and for a little while, I wondered if I was making the right decision...)

But Sister Presbyopia settled things the following week. I wasn’t expecting ANOTHER lecture, not after mom backed me up. But THIS one was much more direct, hissed at me almost.

I was GUARANTEEING myself purgatory at LEAST, probably hell, which was what I deserved for spitting in the face of the one true church as I was...that sort of thing the sister EXPECTED from the 3 or 4 OTHER heathens that were taking the public school route, but NOT ME.
Yada yada yada...

Finally, emboldened by the fact that mom wouldn’t kick my ass about the school thing, I told the sister, very succinctly, that I was prepared to take my chances. And I left.

Walked out on a nun. Closed the door, and felt the thrill of self-empowerment for the first time in my life!

The second time followed close behind. After the Grade 8 graduation, since I was NOT invited to the after-party at a popular girl’s house, I raced home, ripped out the thousands of bobbypins and attempted to brush through the gallons of Aquanet hairspray holding my requisite graduation beehive in place, and went out for pizza with mommy dearest and brat man (aka little bro).
I felt free, I felt alive, I felt totally pissed off at the popular girl who did NOT invite me to her party.

So much so that the pitiful aspect of ‘celebrating’ this life passage with the two least favourite people in my life didn’t even bother me.